Recent work stems from an ongoing interest in memory; how we classify, organize and memorialize events of our lives. As humans we have the unique ability to recall, preserve, sometimes with great detail, complex memories. These may be classified as biological (DNA), geological (earth from which we are realized and the clay medium), ethnic, cultural, familial and personal. I refer to this organization as a "taxonomy of memory": a method of naming and classifying memory and its constructs.

I think of memory as a layers of information, each level inparting bits of information crutial to our consciousness and a means to our immortality. This information comes to the surface and fades away: some of this information we remember from actual experiences or sense from some source, but other information we recall has a deeper and unexplainable locus. I view my work as a metaphor for these ideas. My work tells stories or describes memories, the details of which are imparted bit by bit in layers.I am interested in how memory is preserved and how layers, like a pearl, form sometimes confusing or false memories. After the actual living of an event, we often change and mold the memory into a more palatable or manageable one, something we can better cope with or understand or compartmentalize.

The first layer of these memories is present in the clay material, which imparts its own geological memory or DNA. In its smallest grain, clay can impart its own story where it was made and from what materials it was made. The form tells more information, the imagery relates more of the story, and the surfaces relate even more information until the story or memory is fully realized. I do this all with the understanding that the story.memories may be read or interpreted differently based on the cultural background of the viewer.

Artist's Resume

Education

2000 MFA Peck School of the Arts, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UW-M). 1996 Summer study abroad, Cortona, Italy. 1994 University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC). BA in History of Art and Architecture awarded with honors.